Morning Star
by Pharoah'sCat
Summary: Threshold of Courage ends with nearly all the participants stunned and exhausted. What might have happened next? Specifically to John and Victoria. Others have tackled this time and place, and very well too. This is my take.


Morning Star

_Author's Note: This story takes place in the immediate aftermath of "Threshold of Courage." And it presages an exchange between Victoria in John in "Follow Your Heart." Its funny about these things though... this wasn't the story I started out to write. But it kind of went it's own way. Many, many thanks to all those who take the time to read and respond with such kind words. And another shout out to the people who post amazing fan videos on HC and other shows. Very inspiring. As ever, not my characters...all credit to David Dortort et al._

John woke with a start and tried to orient himself. He took a deep breath to quiet his pounding heart. Slowly, carefully, and as quietly as he could, he extricated himself from Victoria's arms and stood up from the two cots pushed together that were serving…poorly…as their bed. Every fiber of his body reminded him immediately of the punishment he had endured at the hands of the mad Captain Carr. The ache was a leaden blanket of pain and soreness.

He should have made them all leave right after Carr's death, he thought bitterly. But Manolito has pointed out how exhausted and shaken Victoria was, (which was true), and Victoria had, in turn, pointed out that Mano was still suffering from his head wound, (somewhat true). So, in the end he had given in. Blue and Joe and the rest of the hands had taken the prisoners off the mountain and toward the nearest law, while he, Victoria, Mano and Buck remained behind for a night of rest.

"Some rest." He thought as he slipped around the back of the tent to relieve himself.

He came back to the side of the tent but didn't re-enter right away. Instead he just stood, gazing out at a vast blackness. Black trees silhouetted against a blacker sky; no moon and the stars shrouded in dark clouds. It would rain soon he figured.

He sensed Buck's presence even before he heard him.

"You all right Brother John?" Buck slipped out of the dark to stand by him.

John merely shrugged. "Do you think it will ever end?"

At first Buck thought John was confused… thought he was still at Carr's mercy. He almost started to say as much, but then caught himself.

"You mean the war?"

"The war."

Buck took a deep breath. "I don't rightly know. Mebee not as long as there are men who are busted up…outside or inside. Body and soul. Like Carr"

John nodded. "Well, in that case I think we all better hurry up and die. For everyone's sake." There was anger and something close to savagery in the way his bother spoke.

Buck wasn't surprised to hear the vehemence and fury in John's voice. He had such thoughts himself, from time to time. But he was surprised to hear him voice them out loud. John was the all time champion of keeping his feelings buried deep.

He didn't know what to say. The brothers stood, side by side, staring out into darkness.

Victoria's voice snapped John's attention away. First softly, then with some fear, she called her husband's name.

Quickly, John stepped away from Buck and re-entered the tent. Victoria immediately stepped into his arms. She was in her shift and had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She was shaking slightly...whether from fear or the night's chill, he didn't know. She had lit a kerosene lamp and its small but steady light revealed that she had taken the two thin mattresses and all the blankets and bedding, (and several pieces of clothing), off the cot and placed them in the middle of the tent floor.

"I heard you and Buck outside but then it all went so still, I began to worry."

"Its all right. What's all this?" He indicated the pile of bedding on the floor.

"Those cots are horrible. We will be more comfortable here."

She knelt and beckoned him to join her. With a groan he knelt as well, then lay down beside her.

"It hurts very much?"

He gave a small chuckle. "Well I never have been run over in a stampede but I am pretty sure this is what it must feel like." Still, he had to admit, the ground actually was more comfortable.

She sighed against his chest and then pushed his torn undershirt aside. "You promised you would tell me about this scar," she said, tracing the old wound on its course from his collarbone diagonally half way down his chest.

He didn't say anything.

"Is it from the war?"

"Victoria, I really don't want to …especially now…after Carr…"

"But don't you see," she said fervently, raising her head from his chest to look him full in the face. "You must. I heard what you said to Buck; that all those who bore scars from the war should just hurry and die…" John started to brush that aside but Victoria did not let him.

"I heard the anger in your voice as well. You have to…if you don't talk about this, about what you went through it becomes" …she struggled for words…"the anger turns inside…like a wound that festers because it was never opened and cleaned properly. It's what happened to Carr, I think and men like him. Carr's wound to his arm was treated but his soul grew dark."

John sighed and turned his face away. But she gently turned him back to face her.

He sighed again and said, "You sound like Annalee." And then immediately regretted his words, as if any mention of his first wife was forbidden between them. "I'm sorry…" he began.

She shushed his lips. "It is all right. Of course. I am glad Annalee was able to help you after the war. I know she did or you wouldn't be the man you are now. I am grateful. But you must let me help you now, my husband."

"Is it from the war?" she repeated.

"Yes," he said simply.

She lay her head back down on his chest. "Tell me."

"There honestly isn't that much to tell. No really," he insisted as she started to protest. "And that 's the thing. I don't even know exactly how I got this scar. I know the where and more or less the when, but I really don't know how."

"Then just tell me what you do know."

Suddenly he rose up on his elbow to look directly at Victoria.

"Earlier today, when Carr's men started to fire and Buck and Blue and the boys were all firing from the ridge and everyone was shouting and I pulled you and Stacey into the trench, what did that feel like?"

"It was awful," she said with a shudder. "Worse than an Apache raid somehow. I felt like I couldn't breath or hear properly. I knew you were protecting me, but I felt trapped as well."

He nodded. "Well, imagine that over a full day. Or two days…or even three days like at Gettysburg. And then imagine that happening again and again over months and years."

He lay back down. "You begin to lose…your center…time and place are constantly overwhelmed with the noise of gunfire, and screams of the wounded men; friends…strangers…the enemy…wounded horses; the smell of blood and gunpowder. The unending confusion of it all."

He paused again. "I'm sorry. I am not explaining very well." He was astonished at himself; he had told some of this to Annalee, but not all.

Reluctantly, he began.

"Petersburg." He said, giving the name a bitter bite. "It was a goddamned siege. Sorry." But Victoria had paid no attention to the profanity.

"The siege lasted almost a year. Carr must have been there for most of it. I came …maybe…half way through. There were endless battles and skirmishes and raids and snipers and after a while they all blended together. It was a week…a few days…before the end of the war. At a place called Five Forks. We, the Union, won but by that time victory and defeat pretty much tasted the same. Except maybe for the idea that this time we really were close to the end of it all."

There was a long pause. In the distance thunder rolled around the mountains.

"I have no idea how Carr knew who I was. I don't remember him at all. I probably did hack off his hand. I told Carr that the war ended for me at Appomattox. But that was a half truth. I carry the war with me. Not like Carr did…not in hatred and obsession, but still, it remains with me. The small amount of good…the men and comrades I remember… and the much larger slice of bad…the terror and brutality and waste. I just try and bury as much of it as I can."

"I know," Victoria said softly.

"But for me, that day at Five Forks was just like every other battle… a blur. A blur from hell. "

He stopped again, so long that Victoria was afraid he wouldn't continue. A flash of lightening briefly brightened the tent. The temperature dropped and Victoria wove herself even closer to John.

"Keep going. The wound."

"I was in a cavalry unit that sometimes fought off the ground; it's called mounted infantry. It wasn't until after the battle that I even knew it was there. I was helping gather the wounded…and the dead… from the field. And I saw blood on the front of my coat. I didn't pay any attention; I just thought it was blood from one of the wounded. When I helped this one soldier into the medical tent, one of the doctors stopped me and told me to open my coat. It was a pretty deep gash. Mostly it had stopped bleeding but not completely. And that was the first time I realized it hurt like hell," he said with a wry smile. "Doc told me to get it cleaned out and I said I would but I was too busy and by the time I did it had started to close over some of the fabric of the coat. When they re-opened it to clean it, that hurt pretty good too. Doctor said I would have a thick scar and he was right. But truly, I don't remember how I was wounded. Might have been a bullet, might have been a piece of bark chipped out of a tree by a bullet, might have been a saber. It might have been Carr's saber for all I know. I ended up with a scar…he ended up with a hook."

"That's not you fault," Victoria said quietly.

"I know. I really do know that at least. But that's the thing about that war; probably about all wars. It's mostly just luck…good and bad…fear, confusion, and so much death you become numb after awhile. And that brings a different kind of fear; fear that you will never feel anything again."

"That will never be you," Victoria said firmly. "I never knew anyone who feels things as deeply as you do. Even if you don't always say things out loud," she added with a smile. "I know how deeply because of the way you make love to me." Victoria said calmly.

John started as if he had been poked with a branding iron.

"What!?"

"Our first night together…really together as husband and wife in more than just name…you told me of the closeness we would share. Before that night I knew you from what you said, from what you didn't say, and what you did. But after that night I knew you…know you…by what you gave. And by what you let me give to you. Everyone knows how strong you are; I know how gentle you can be. You let me see all of you; heart and soul, scars and all. And that man…"

"That man's soul," John interrupted, "can never…will never darken…as long as I have you."

Victoria raised her head from his chest again and looked down at him, "You always will." And then, as her expression changed to what seemed to him to be a surprisingly pensive look, he became aware of her hand traveling south of his waist.

"You know…" she said after a moment…"I don't think you are as tired as you think you are."

The first drops of rain spattered against the tent.

To his everlasting astonishment John realized she was right; despite all that Carr had put him through, despite the pain and exhaustion and the memories of the worst time in his life, all he wanted to do, in this moment, was find himself once again with…and in…his beautiful and amazing wife.

He rolled toward her and pushed her shift above her waist. He fumbled with his pant buttons, but Victoria effortlessly freed him. Looking down, he saw he gazing up at him, lips parted and wet with her own desire. He gave himself over to those lips and that woman whose heart was as entwined with his as their bodies were. And as the rain fell harder and more ferociously, all that he had seen and suffered…in the war, at the hands of Carr; all the hardships he had endured in this hard and wondrous land were surrendered in shared passion, shared love.

The rain fell now in an onslaught, finding every hole and tear in the old tent. Fat drops spattered on and around them. They didn't notice.

* * *

Afterward

The rain ended just before dawn. John and Victoria stood side by side in the entrance to the tent gazing east, a blanket enveloping them both.

"You know, some things I learn very quickly, and some things," he said, smiling down at her, "I have to be told again and again."

"Don't worry," she said, returning his smile, "I'll keep reminding you."

He just smiled again.

"For instance, Annalee," (and now for the first time in their marriage, neither one flinched at hearing the name), "tried over and over to teach me the name of the stars…the constellations…but I just couldn't seem to learn. But I managed to remember a few and I know that one…" he pointed east, just above the horizon, "is Venus…the morning star."

The watched for a while as the horizon grew lighter and Venus disappeared in the hot light of the rising sun.

"It's gone," Victoria said with a touch of sadness.

"Yes," he agreed. "But it always returns. Every new day."

He took a deep breath, "Let's go home."


End file.
